Dan_Jacobson@ATT.COM (02/26/91)
Bob Chassell, Treasurer of the Free Software Foundation, informs me that the FSF has shipped about 30,000 GNU Emacs manuals in the past five years, and recently has been averaging 800 manuals per month! Also ISBN book numbers are being / have been introduced. -- Dan_Jacobson@ATT.COM Naperville IL USA +1 708-979-6364
stiller@cs.jhu.edu (Lewis Stiller) (02/26/91)
In article <DANJ1.91Feb25191827@cbnewse.ATT.COM> Dan_Jacobson@ATT.COM writes: >Bob Chassell, Treasurer of the Free Software Foundation, informs me >that the FSF has shipped about 30,000 GNU Emacs manuals in the past >five years, and recently has been averaging 800 manuals per month! >Also ISBN book numbers are being / have been introduced. >-- >Dan_Jacobson@ATT.COM Naperville IL USA +1 708-979-6364 I recommend the GNU emacs manual very highly. It might seem counterintuitive, since it is on-line, but a well-formatted, well-bound and well-designed at-hand manual such as that one turns out to be a big timesaver: in fact my lab mates are frequently consulting it as well. It used to be really cheap too. I have a few quibbles with the design (e.g., multiple indexes), but, again, I recommend this to all emacs users and potential emacs users. Lewis Stiller Department of Computer Science Johns Hopkins University
hollen@megatek.UUCP (Dion Hollenbeck) (02/28/91)
In article <stiller.667537884@newton.cs.jhu.edu> stiller@cs.jhu.edu (Lewis Stiller) writes: > > I recommend the GNU emacs manual very highly. It might seem > counterintuitive, since it is on-line, but a well-formatted, > well-bound and well-designed at-hand manual such as that one turns out to be > a big timesaver: in fact my lab mates are frequently consulting it as > well. It used to be really cheap too. I have a few quibbles with the > design (e.g., multiple indexes), but, again, I recommend this to all > emacs users and potential emacs users. > > Lewis Stiller > Department of Computer Science > Johns Hopkins University And I have exactly the opposite viewpoint. I DON'T recommend the manual. Without knowing the name of exactly the function you want, it is impossible to look it up in the index. Yes, you can look up general subjects, go to that section and then troll through the whole section until you find what you want, but I think that a better method is to use M-x apropos followed by Info to get more specific information on the topic. Since functions in Emacs generally have a word somewhere in the function name which is descriptive of what you want, you will get everything containing it, even if it is in the middle of the function name. In the index to the printed manual, if it is not in the beginning, you are out of luck. -- ----- Dion Hollenbeck (619) 455-5590 x2814 Megatek Corporation, 9645 Scranton Road, San Diego, CA 92121 uunet!megatek!hollen or hollen@megatek.uucp
tim@cstr.ed.ac.uk (Tim Bradshaw) (02/28/91)
>>>>> On 26 Feb 91 01:18:33 GMT, Dan_Jacobson@ATT.COM said: > Bob Chassell, Treasurer of the Free Software Foundation, informs me > that the FSF has shipped about 30,000 GNU Emacs manuals in the past > five years, and recently has been averaging 800 manuals per month! > Also ISBN book numbers are being / have been introduced. That's a lot! I reckon that must mean something like 100,000 serious users of Emacs, possibly rather more, but less than a million. Does anyone know how many copies <some random word-processor> ships over its life? how about <random commercial Unix editor/word-processor excluding stuff shipped with Unix (vi, ed &c)>? --tim Tim Bradshaw. Internet: tim%ed.cstr@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk UUCP: ...!uunet!mcvax!ukc!cstr!tim JANET: tim@uk.ac.ed.cstr "...wizzards & inchanters..."
mhoffos@janus.mtroyal.ab.ca (03/04/91)
In article <TIM.91Feb28152445@kahlo.cstr.ed.ac.uk>, tim@cstr.ed.ac.uk (Tim Bradshaw) writes: >>>>>> On 26 Feb 91 01:18:33 GMT, Dan_Jacobson@ATT.COM said: > > [...] > That's a lot! I reckon that must mean something like 100,000 serious > users of Emacs, possibly rather more, but less than a million. Does > anyone know how many copies <some random word-processor> ships over > its life? how about <random commercial Unix editor/word-processor > excluding stuff shipped with Unix (vi, ed &c)>? > > --tim > Tim Bradshaw. Internet: tim%ed.cstr@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk > UUCP: ...!uunet!mcvax!ukc!cstr!tim JANET: tim@uk.ac.ed.cstr > "...wizzards & inchanters..." According to the latest WordPerfect Report, they (WordPerfect) are shipping 200 000 copies a month world-wide, which represents (according to the figures I have seen) about 66% of the DOS word-processer market. Last year, they had $459 Million in sales. Last year, they also reached a huge milestone: cumulative sales of $1 billion. Remeber this too: WordPerfect exists for *many* different platforms, including the Mac, the Amiga, the Atari ST, UNIX V/386, System 370, the NeXT, the Data General, etc. These are in my opinion staggering numbers. I guess it is not that surprising why WordPerfect is sysonymous with word processing! I have no connection with WP, etc. etc. Mike Hoffos -- mhoffos@janus.mtroyal.ab.ca (Mount Royal College is a community college in Calgary, Alberta) Disclaimer: Mount Royal College doesn't speak for me, and I *certainly* don't speak for it.